A family had a lucky escape after their home was showered with scrap metal when a three tonnes skip slid off a lorry in Shipdham.

A family had a lucky escape after their home was showered with scrap metal when a three-tonne skip slid off a

lorry.

The Kelleher family was shaken by the crash at 9.30am on Saturday when the skip fell off an Easco lorry and gouged a trail in the road before coming to a rest outside its home in Church Close, Shipdham, near Dereham.

Police called in structural engineers to check the safety of the 400-year-old Grade II listed cottage following the accident, although they only found surface scratches and small holes.

With the pavement opposite All Saints' Church buried beneath the scrap and the skip, Michael Kelleher, 60, said it was a miracle nobody was killed.

Police believe a lock on the lorry's trailer bolts was sheared, causing it to tip the skip on to the road as it came round the bend on the A1075.

Mr Kelleher said: "It is incredibly lucky nobody was walking by or a car hadn't been passing because somebody would have been killed."

He said he and his wife Monica, 63, and son Michael, 19, had lived in the village for three years and noticed a steady rise in amount of heavy traffic.

"It is very narrow through the village but it is so busy now. We get lorries and tankers coming through here all the time," he said.

Shipdham Parish Council clerk Geoff Dadd said the accident highlighted the road was not suitable for the increasing number of lorries taking rubbish to be processed at Norfolk Waste's site on Shipdham Airfield Industrial Estate.

He said: "We are getting more and more waste lorries coming through the village that often have difficulties as the roads were never made for vehicles of this size."

The parish council has already raised concerns with Norfolk County Council and called for safety improvements at another dangerous part of the village at the Letton Road junction.

Anybody who witnessed the incident or has information should call PC Rob Timmins on 0845 4564567.